Lisette Xavier: Hot Mess

Let’s face it, adulting is hard; there’s jobs to maintain, bills to pay, kids to raise – the responsibilities abound. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep it all together or give the appearance you’re in control. According to Lisette Xavier, it’s OK if you don’t. “Who isn’t a hot mess?” she asks.

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Along with the support of her partner, fellow musician, Michael 8, her own life is very full with two young children, the usual day to day obligations, as well as her growing musical career. As Lisette puts it, “I feel like I’m constantly failing forwards. And I don’t actually know what I’m doing. There’s kind of this illusion, that I know what I’m doing. People will meet me, or ask me questions, like I have a clue – and I don’t. You get up every day and it’s like ‘what is life?’ and you just do it. You go with the motions. You do what feels good, you follow the momentum and it just happens.”

With two YYC Music Awards nominations under her belt (2017 Female Artist of the Year and 2018 Pop Recording of the Year) Lisette is thrilled about the new single set for release next month, titled “Hot Mess”.

She has planned a very special Single Release Party on Friday, January 11th (which also happens to be her birthday) in a secret location; a castle right in the heart of Calgary, Alberta’s inner city. It’s a free event, but you must be on the guest list to get the address to the venue. Sign up to be on that list HERE.

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She confesses it’s a song about her, “I think this is the first song that, when I listen to it, it’s like ‘yeah this is me’. Because it feels true. Because it’s very much about not knowing, and that being ok.”

Working with producer, Trey Mills, the song was built on a single line ‘I’m just lost in the right direction’. Lisette says the single was easy to wright, “because it was very much ‘yeah, I am lost in the right direction.’ Then I had a lot of little lyrics from unfinished songs I had never completed, and they were all the same thing. So, I think I’ve been trying to write this song for a long time. All these lines and little melodies just came together, and they didn’t know they were meant to be together, but they were.

This is the truest me that people will see. Which is really nice. And it’s kind of nice to have that like ‘it’s ok to be a fuck up’. People think you should have it together, and maybe you don’t need to have it together, and that’s cool. Just be a hot mess.”

Playing piano since she was 5 years old, Lisette says her mother always wanted to play piano, so both she and her sister were put into lessons. Lisette says those lessons were against her will though, and she hated every minute of it. “I was such a busy kid, and to be forced to sit and do things, practicing every day. It’s funny, because I loved piano, I loved music, I just hated the restraints that were put on me.”

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When she was 8 or 9 years old, after learning about plagiarism in school, she asked her parents why they were fine with her plagiarizing music [with her piano lessons], but she couldn’t copy things in school? Lisette says “my parents were like ‘well shit’, so then I was allowed to quit, but I never stopped playing. So, I quit lessons and just started writing. So, I’ve been playing for love since then.”

After seeing Canadian singer/songwriter, Chantel Kreviazuk perform a solo show, on a Baby Grand Piano at the Calgary Stampede when she was just 9 years old, Lisette says blew her mind. “I went home, wrote my first song. I think it was 6 minutes long, needed a lot of revisions. It was a life-changing moment.”

And the rest is history, as they say.

Lisette also plans to release an “official” music video to accompany the new single next month. She has elected to have 4 to 6 people film her Single Release Party, using footage from the party for not only a music video, but as a memory of what is expected to be a very special evening. She has already filmed an acoustic video for “Hot Mess” in the castle venue. Both videos will be released shortly after the single’s release.

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“I really just want to honor the song. A lot went into it. A lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of love.” Says Lisette.

So, let’s start off 2019 by celebrating the “hot mess” in all of us, and explore a very cool inner-city castle with Lisette on January 11th, and don’t forget, along with live performances, there will be cake, because it is her birthday after all.

Keep me informed!

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